


Fieldwork

by Tokyo_the_Glaive



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Assistant Darcy Lewis, Awesome Darcy Lewis, F/F, F/M, For Science!, Infinity Gems, Near Death Experiences, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-16
Updated: 2016-01-16
Packaged: 2018-05-14 05:46:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5731660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tokyo_the_Glaive/pseuds/Tokyo_the_Glaive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Oh shit, Darcy thought.  Shit, shit, shit.<br/>There was someone else in the lab.  Jane had told her about it weeks ago--a Korean doctor, Darcy remembered, or some such--but Darcy wasn’t fully prepared to herd not one, not two, but three wayward scientists.  As she stepped through the door to the lab, allowing it to fall shut behind her, she took in the space.  Amidst assistants scurrying to and fro, there was Jane, there was Bruce, and there was…<br/>Oh shit, Darcy thought. She’s hot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fieldwork

**Author's Note:**

> Cross-posted on tumblr for a prompt. Enjoy!

_Oh shit_ , Darcy thought.   _Shit, shit, shit_.

There was someone else in the lab.  Jane had told her about it weeks ago--a Korean doctor, Darcy remembered, or some such--but Darcy wasn’t fully prepared to herd not one, not two, but _three_ wayward scientists.  As she stepped through the door to the lab, allowing it to fall shut behind her, she took in the space.  Amidst assistants scurrying to and fro, there was Jane, there was Bruce, and there was…

_Oh shit,_ Darcy thought. _She’s hot_.

* * *

Darcy walked further into the lab and willed herself into a neutral expression.

“Darcy!” Jane called.  “Come here for a second.”

Darcy dutifully came to Jane’s side.  Ever since Foster Theory had hit the scientific community, grant money had been flowing like water and praise like wine, and Jane hadn’t stopped smiling.  Around that time, Bruce had appeared, asking for the equivalent of asylum in exchange for research.  Jane and Darcy had accepted him and all of his weird tics with open arms, though they kept some reservations as to why he had come in the first place.

“I texted Thor,” Jane said the night Bruce came to them.  Jane and Darcy were living in an apartment together for the time being as they did work up in Sweden, and they’d given Bruce the couch until they found a place for him. “They say the Hulk’s missing.”

“He’s sleeping in the other room,” Darcy said.

“I think he’s hiding,” Jane said.

Darcy peered through the doorway to the other room.  It was perfectly dark and silent.

“Do you blame him?” Darcy asked.  “We’ll have to be careful.”

“What?” Jane asked. “Why?”

“Because if people are looking for this guy and they see him with us, what does that look like, huh?”

Jane frowned.  “We’ll be careful,” she said.  “I promise.”

* * *

And they had been careful, working only with assistants too scared to lose their jobs to report Bruce’s presence, right up until Jane brought someone new-- _someone hot, damn it_ \--into the lab.

“Darcy,” Jane started, snapping her back to the present, “this is Dr. Helen Cho.  Helen, this is Darcy.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Helen said.  She gave a short bow that Darcy tried to emulate.  She could feel her own face going hot under the attention.  Helen was looking directly at her.

“Same,” Darcy said.  “Do you want coffee, or tea, or…?”

Helen smiled slightly.  “No, thank you,” she said.

“Right,” Darcy said.  She looked from Bruce to Jane.  “Right. Either of you two before you get lost in science and can’t get back out?”

Helen laughed, and Darcy did, too.  Jane just gave her a fond look.

“I’m all right,” she said.  Bruce nodded, his attention already on one of the instruments.  “You ready to get started?”

“Sure,” Darcy said.  “Tell me what you want me to do.”  Jane crossed the room and pulled down a set of diagrams.  “Those are the bridge stabilization calculations,” Darcy said.

“Yeah,” Jane said.  “I’d assumed it was entirely physical--admittedly not following our physics, but similar to Asgardian--”  Darcy held up a hand.  Jane took in a breath, then let it out.  Darcy had nearly trained her to do it at the drop of a hat to prevent her from launching on unnecessary tirades.  Darcy had run the calculations herself; she knew what they were based around.

“Jane asked me to come because she believes the bridge has biochemical components,” Helen said, coming up beside Darcy.  She wasn’t close--hadn’t even breached Darcy’s bubble of personal space--but Darcy felt herself go hot under the collar.

“You think there are microbes in space?” Darcy heard herself asking, even as she cursed how stupid she sounded.

“Not exactly,” Helen said.

“Darcy, I’d like you to show Helen what you’ve got so far,” Jane said.  To Helen, she added, “I’m so sorry, I just didn’t want to send over the numbers when the world’s going mad.”

“Better safe than sorry,” Helen murmured.  She was looking at Bruce.

Darcy tried to grin.  “All right, then,” she said. “Let’s get started.”

* * *

Talking Helen through the calculations was way easier than Darcy had anticipated.  Darcy had always been good at math, but it had never been her favorite subject.  She liked things with practical outcomes, something you could see and use.  The numbers she was running for Jane had that benefit, but talking to Jane could be tiring.  Jane tended to interrupt every few seconds with some idea, definition, or completely unrelated thought.  Bruce, on the other hand, tended to unintentionally seem to not pay attention.  He was listening, and Darcy knew that, but she was always exasperated whenever she had to explain experiment that she’d carried out to him because she felt stupid every time.

Helen was very different.  She looked at the numbers and figures as Darcy ran through them.  She asked questions whenever something was unclear, but she made Darcy feel like the expert rather than the intern who had, by some miracle of the galaxy, graduated to the Associate Investigator level in the Foster lab.

At the end of it, when Darcy sat back, Helen looked seriously at Darcy.

“What do you think?” she asked.

“Excuse me?” Darcy asked.

Helen tilted her head slightly.  “What do you think of the numbers?” she repeated.  “What are your thoughts?”

Darcy drew a blank.  She opened her mouth and closed it again.  “I’m not…” Darcy stopped herself.  “I mean, I don’t know. They don’t work the way they are now.”

Helen tilted her head. “You don’t have any theories of your own?”

Darcy felt herself flush a deep scarlet.  “I’m not…”

“Forgive me,” Helen said.  Darcy’s embarrassment must have been plain to see.  “I did not mean to upset you.”

“You haven’t, it’s just…” Darcy ran a hand through her hair.  “No one’s asked me that question.”

Helen had made to stand up, but now she eased herself back into the chair she’d occupied for the past hour and a half as Darcy ran through the physics behind what Jane had done over the past few years.  During that time, Darcy had watched both Jane and Bruce traverse the lab.  None of the assistants had lost their skittish edge around Bruce, but he had his retinue and they dutifully performed all that he asked of them.  He was methodical where Jane was… Well, she was Jane.  Brilliant, but overwhelming.  That day was just like every other day, except for Helen Cho.

“But you run the numbers,” Helen said.  “You do the experiments, do you not?”

“I do,” Darcy said.

Helen pressed her lips into a thin line.  “It is not my place to say what you should or should not do,” Helen said, “but if I were to give you advice, I would say that you should consider how you feel about the data--about all that you do.  From what Jane has told me about you, you are a valued member of the lab.  I’m sure your insights would be most appreciated.”

Darcy tried to smile.  “Thanks,” she said.  “Not so sure about the appreciated part, but I’ll try.”

Helen looked ready to say something, but Jane tapped her on the shoulder.

“Helen,” she said, “are you finished with Darcy?”

“I think I have the basics of your work with it so far,” Helen said, not looking away from Darcy.

Jane nodded.  Her attention was completely taken up by the tablet in her hands.  “Good, because we’ve got something weird and I need to borrow her.”

“What?” Darcy asked.  “Another anomaly?”

“I haven’t seen one like this,” Jane said.

Darcy hopped up.  “I’ll get the keys.”

Helen stood as well.  “Where are we going?”

Jane hesitated even as Darcy crossed the lab.  “Oh,” Jane said, “I didn’t think you would…”

“Want to come?” Helen asked.  “Why not?”

“It’s just,” Jane said, “we can’t leave Bruce alone.”

“Then he’ll come, too,” Helen said firmly.

Darcy smiled as she picked up the keys.  She liked Dr. Helen Cho.  She liked her a lot.

* * *

_“What the hell?”_ Darcy screamed.  Her hands gripped the steering wheel tightly as the van was jerked from one side to the other.  In the passenger seat, Jane had a video camera, a laptop, and a death grip on one of Darcy’s arms.  

“I said keep going!” Jane shouted.

“We have a Hulk in the back seat!” Darcy yelled back.  She risked a glance at the rear view mirror.  Helen had Bruce’s hands in her own and was saying something in a language Darcy didn’t understand--Korean, Darcy guessed.  “We need to turn around.”

“No,” Jane said.  Darcy wanted to hit her head against the steering wheel.  Outside of the van, it was as if a tornado had touched down--and Darcy wasn’t so sure that tornadoes were exactly common in Sweden.  The sky was very dark, and the winds were strong.  It was all Darcy could do to keep the car on the road.  No one was supposed to be out--Darcy had heard so much over the radio as translated by one of the assistants--but Jane had had none of that.

“We’re gonna die,” Darcy muttered.  “Oh my god…”  A bright light flashed in Darcy’s face.   _“Oh my god!”_

On instinct, Darcy swung the steering wheel to one side.  The van veered into the wrong lane and nearly flipped.  It skidded from too sharp a turn as Darcy slammed the breaks.  Outside, between the tires and the wind, Darcy could only hear screaming.

Darcy lost a moment there, between the screaming and the silence.  The airbags hadn’t deployed--Darcy guessed she hadn’t hit the wheel hard enough--and she came to resting against it.  Her hands were shaking violently.  As the ringing in her ears subsided, she realized that the wind was no longer howling, and she could hear Helen continuing to speak Korean in the back seat.

Perhaps more importantly, she didn’t hear angry grunts and groans as Bruce became the Hulk.

“Oh my god,” Jane said.  Darcy couldn’t bring herself to move as Jane jumped out of the car, running back toward something they’d passed.

“Are you all right?”

Darcy’s vision swam as she tried to sit up.  There was a hand on her back.

“Darcy?”

_Helen_.

“M’fine,” Darcy said.  “Just got scared, that’s all.”

“Get that buckle, please,” Darcy heard Helen say.  Darcy’s seat belt was undone, and someone disentangled her arms.  Hands helped her get from the driver’s seat to the backseat, where she found herself wedged between Helen and Bruce.

“It’s going to be all right,” Helen said.  She held both Bruce and Darcy close.  Darcy managed to get an arm around Bruce, and it was then that she realized that he’d been the one to help her back, as he already had a firm grip on her.  “Together, we are grounded.  Together, we are safe.”  She said something in Korean, something repetitive. Darcy thought it was beautiful.

Eventually, Helen tugged on them both.  Without saying too much, they exited the van as a trio and walked toward Jane.  They walked as a cluster, and as soon Jane saw them, she joined them.

“Oh my god,” she said.  “You guys, it’s…”

“It’s what?” Darcy asked.  “Please tell me it’s not Thor.  If it’s Thor I’m gonna hit him.”

At the mention of his name, both Bruce and Helen stiffened.  Darcy filed that information away for later examination.

“No,” Jane said.  “Thank god you swerved, we would have died, its…”

They stood at the edge of a very shallow crater, more a pothole than anything else.  At its center was something small, shiny, and very, very orange.  It was smoking.  Above it, there was a whole in the clouds with a blank center that was rapidly dissipating.

“Tell me your equipment was on,” Bruce breathed, looking up at the sky.

“It’s always on,” Darcy answered for Jane.  “It’s why we got closer, to get better readings.”

“What is it?” Helen asked.  Darcy read fear in her eyes as Helen looked at the orange stone.  She remembered Jane telling her that Helen had been on the receiving end of Loki’s sceptre and the power within it.  She remembered, too, Jane telling her about being taken over by some weird red thing that Thor had called the Aether.  Darcy hugged both of them closer.

“I don’t think we should touch it,” Darcy said.

“Agreed,” came the answer from all sides.

Darcy licked her lips.   _I’m sure your insights would be most appreciated._

“Guys,” Darcy said, swallowing, “I think I know what this is, and I don’t think we _can_ touch it.”

* * *

Jane ended up picking up the stone using a pair of pliers and a lead-lined box.  No one offered to drive home, so Darcy ended up doing that, though her hands hadn’t stopped shaking.  Jane kept apologizing and Helen ran a comforting hand over her shoulder from the backseat, and somehow, they got back to the labs.

No one had the courage to take the rock out of the box.  Jane and Bruce had one of the lab assistants go buy them a case of beer and a case of wine and sent the rest home.  When the liquor arrived, the four of them sat in a circle around the box, each with a drink.

“Darcy?” Jane asked.

Darcy swallowed.  It had been her idea to come back and talk about what the thing could be rather than stay out in the open.  Jane had her data, and the rest of them had their respective near-death experiences; Darcy had figured that a little liquid courage might do them all some good.

“Right,” Darcy said.  “It’s just--remember London?”

“Of course,” Jane said, just as Bruce and Helen said, “No.”

“Uh,” Darcy said.  “Jane found an ancient artifact that was super dangerous called the Aether.  A bunch of dark elves got mad and tried to take it back, and they nearly ended the world.”

Bruce opened and shut his mouth.  Helen sat very still.

“And Jane went to Asgard,” Darcy said, “ _without taking me._ ”

“It wasn’t a vacation!”

“Still!” Darcy said.

Bruce put his hands up.  “You mean to tell us,” he said, “that… What are you telling us, exactly?”

“The Aether was an Infinity Stone,” Jane said.  “Thor told me that there are six of them.  They’re very powerful.”

“There was one in the sceptre,” Helen said slowly.  “It’s what powers the Vision now.”

“Thor told us about them, briefly,” Bruce said.  “You think this is…”

“But why would an Infinity Stone fall through a portal?” Jane asked.  “Why would someone want to get rid of it?”

Darcy’s eyes widened.  “Why would you _want_ it?” she asked.

Bruce shrugged.  “Maybe someone got scared and tried to dispose of it,” he said.  “If it’s so powerful, whoever had it might have realized that they couldn’t contain it.”

“Or someone like the dark elves might have come after it, as they did the Aether,” Helen said.

“We need the Avengers,” Darcy said.

“Agreed,” Jane said.  “I’ll call Thor.”

“Wait a second,” Bruce said.

“No, no, we’re not keeping this,” Darcy said.  “Jane, I love you, but I can’t do this again.”

“Agreed,” Jane repeated.

“No,” Bruce said, “that wasn’t what I-- I’ll take it back myself.  With me.”

“What?” Jane asked.  “You--”

“I thought you were hiding from the Avengers,” Darcy said flatly.

Bruce swallowed.  “If there’s some-- _thing_ \--out there that’s going to be looking for that,” he said, pointing at the box, “I should probably help them stop it.”  Darcy could have sworn she felt it pulse, but maybe that was just the wave of dizziness that passed over her.   _Shock_ , she thought.   _I’m in shock_.

Jane made the call, and Bruce stood by the case.  Darcy nursed a bottle of beer as she sat on the floor by her desk, too tired to lift herself into the chair.  Helen came to sit next to her.

“If you hadn’t swerved,” Helen said, “we could have died.”

“Instinct,” Darcy said.  “It’s fine.”

“If you hadn’t spoken up,” Helen said, “one of us would have touched that thing.  We could have died.”

Darcy smiled up at Helen.  “You don’t have to make me feel better, it’s okay.”

Helen glanced at Jane, then looked back at Darcy.  “May I ask you a personal question?”

“Shoot,” Darcy said.

Helen moved a little farther away from Darcy, and Darcy did her best to look at her--really look at her.

“You said that you love Jane,” Helen said seriously. “Are you aware that she and Thor are…?”

Darcy nearly spit out her beer.  “It’s an expression,” she said.  “I didn’t mean romantic love.  I don’t have one of those right now.  For the record, not the time to ask that question, either.”

“I see,” Helen said.  She hadn’t broken eye contact with Darcy.

Something possessed Darcy to ask, “Do you?”

Helen flushed.  “What?”

“Do you have a romantic love?  Someone you should check in with now?” Darcy asked.  “They’d be worried if they found out what you’ve been through.”

“No,” Helen said.  She suddenly found the hemline of her dress exceedingly interesting.  “I don’t.”

“Oh,” Darcy said.  “Okay.”  After a moment, she said, “I’m sorry.”  Helen tilted her head in confusion.  “You seem like a lovely person.  You deserve someone good.”

“So do you,” Helen said.

Darcy smiled.  “But you’re a genius,” she said.

Helen shook her head and was about to say something when they heard a crack from the front of the lab.  Jane rushed over and Darcy stood in time to see her boss literally run into Thor’s arms.

“You should have something like that,” Darcy said.  She looked from Thor to Jane as they held each other.  For the first time, Jane looked drained and afraid.  Darcy wondered how often she put up fronts to look as if she were merely curious, not scared.

Helen stood and moved closer to Darcy.  Without saying anything, she interlaced her fingers with Darcy’s.  Without thinking, Darcy squeezed her hand, and Helen squeezed back.  Darcy didn’t know what that meant, but she felt a little better, so maybe it was okay.


End file.
